And emil marie forst



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN VAN OPSTAL, OF NEXV YORK, AND EMIL MARIE FORST, OF W'OODSIDE, NEW YORK.

ARTIFICIAL FUEL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 569,689, dated October 20, 1896.

Application filed June 28, 1895. Serial No. 554,855. (No specimens.)

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, J OHN VAN OPSTAL, of New York, county of New York, and EMIL MARIE FORST, of Vvoodside, Queens county, New York, have invented an Improved Artificial Fuel, of which the following is a specification.

The object of our inven tion has been to provide an artificial fuel which shall burn without generating any offensive odor or fatty and disagreeable black smoke.

In producing our artificial fuel we melt in a kettle about ten parts of pitch and add thereto about three parts of commercial soda and ten parts of water. The mixture is boiled by a steam-coil for about half an hour, the object being to assist the action of the soda in purifying the pitch. After-boiling as aforesaid the bulk of the impurities or of the compound so formed is allowed to settle at the bottom, while the pitch, containing yet a little of the soda, is drawn off and into a' second kettle. Here hot water is added and a second purification of like character takes place and then the mixture is poured into cold water, where the pitch issolidified into lumps,

, while the balance of the soda will have been expelled. The pitch thus treated is ground up, mixed with about ninety parts of coaldust, and the mixture is heated to cause the pitch to melt and combine with the coal-d net. The mixture is fed into molds, where it is shaped and compressed into cakes of suitable configuration and dimensions.

By treating the pitch with the soda in the manner described we so purify the pitch that the fuel will not generate any fatty or disagreeable black smoke, while the oombustive qualities of the pitch are in no wise impaired.

(Ye are aware that artificial fuels have been patented in which soda was a component element of the mixture, such as described in British patents to Le Franc, No. 1,852 of 1880, Spence, No. 698 of 1884, and Schoop, No. 737 of 1888. The processes and compounds there described are, however, radically different from ours. Nhile in the inventions disclosed in these British patents the soda is an essential ingredient of the composition, in our process, on the other hand, it is to be particularly noted that the soda is entirely eliminated from the final product.

e are aware that soda has been commonly used in the arts to purify hydrocarbons, and we do not claim any novelty in this step of our process by itself; but we are the first, so far as we know, to have discovered that by purifying the pitch and then mixing the purified pitch with coal-dust an artificial fuel is obtained which burns without the disagreeable odor and smoke attendant upon previous artificial fuels formed from pitch and coal-dust.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The process of producing an artificial fuel which consists in treating coal-tar pitch with soda to purify the same, removing the soda and the impurities, mixing the pitch, so

- purified,with coal-dust, and molding the mixture, substantially as described.

2. The process of producing an artificial fuel which consists in adding soda to molten pitch, boiling the mixture so as to cause the soda to combine with the impurities of the pitch, separating the pitch from the soda and impurities, mixing the pitch with coal-dust, and molding the mixture, substantially as described.

3. As a new composition of matter, coal-tar pitch, purified by soda, and coal-dust, mixed substantially in the proportions specified.

4. As a new composition of matter, coaldust and coal-tar pitch deprived of its acid constituents, mixed substantially in the proportions described.

J OHN VAN OPSTAL. EMIL MARIE FORST. Witnesses:

THEODORE BECKER, F. v. BRIESEN. 

